Recently in Internet Crime Category

The Christian dating website ChristianMingle.com is at the center of an alleged rape investigation.

Police arrested Sean Patrick Banks, 37, of Del Mar, California, on suspicion of raping a woman he'd met on ChristianMingle.com. Banks may have been trolling the website in search of prey as he traveled around the country looking for work, reports ABC News.

Banks also allegedly used fake names online. Police are looking for other potential victims.

Joshua Scott Albert's Facebook activity suggests he doesn't much like cops. But is that a crime?

Philadelphia prosecutors think so, and announced a status update earlier this week: Albert, 26, is now a fugitive, charged with harassment, making terroristic threats, and criminal solicitation to commit murder, the Philadelphia Daily News reports.

How can a person's Facebook posts lead to criminal charges?

An Arizona man got a 10-year prison sentence because of his Facebook addiction. William Hall claims his addiction to the social media site led to him to violate his probation.

Hall was convicted of attempted sexual exploitation of a minor and surreptitious photographing in October 2010. As part of his sentence, Hall was given 10 years of probation and required to register as a sex offender, Forbes' website reports.

In addition, Hall also couldn't use the internet without his probation officer's approval. The tough part was that Hall was a Web designer.

A new escort ad law in Washington seeks to reduce the number of underage escorts by imposing criminal penalties.

Gov. Chris Gregoire signed the bill into Washington state law last week. The law subjects classified advertising companies to criminal punishment if they allow sex-related ads featuring minors to be published, The Seattle Times reports.

The law requires both print and online publications to make a good-faith effort to verify the ages of the people advertised in sex-related ads. But some Washington classified companies don't like the new law.

Whenever you open your email inbox, you're flooded with messages that you never signed up for. Maybe there's some company that's hawking some kitschy t-shirts. Or, maybe there's some email that claims they can sell you "v1agra" over the web. Spam is annoying. That may be why you might wonder if sending spam is a crime -- or if there are anti-spam laws out there to protect you.

There are. But most of the time, sending spam itself isn't a crime punishable by jail time.

But there are times when a spam message could amount to a violation of criminal law.

An Illinois man linked to an elaborate LinkedIn fraud is facing an enforcement action by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC accuses investment advisor Anthony Fields of Lyons, Ill., of trying to hawk more than $500 billion in securities by using LinkedIn and other social media sites, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The securities were bogus, and Fields didn't even have proper credentials to sell them, the SEC alleges.

Though Fields was apparently acting alone, the practice of using social media like LinkedIn for fraud is on the rise.

Facebook burglary is real. So real that insurance companies in Australia and the United Kingdom are warning people about the consequences of posting their locations online.

That warning also applies here in the U.S., where a string of burglaries was tied to social media just last year. Two of those break-ins were prompted by Facebook posts from homeowners who had gone on vacation.

Even your Facebook friends can't be trusted.

A warning for cell phone subscribers using AT&T: Hackers attempted -- and failed -- to reach out and touch some of your personal data.

The "organized" hacking attempt affected less than 1 percent of AT&T's cellular customers, a spokesman told The Washington Post. AT&T is the nation's second-largest mobile carrier with 100 million subscribers.

Affected customers were notified by email Monday. AT&T said customer data was not accessed, but warned users they may still be at increased risk for email or text-based scams.

Americans these days seem to be avid consumers of everything web-based. But, if things like Facebook are being used to organize crimes, can the government impose a Facebook ban? Or, even a blanket social media ban?

It seems that our neighbors across the pond are considering a ban on things like Facebook and Twitter.

The widely-publicized use of social media in organizing crimes like looting and vandalism in London likely influenced this new idea.

A possible flash mob robbery in Germantown, Maryland, took place over the weekend.

About 3 dozen youngsters, caught on videotape, entered a 7-Eleven convenience store early Saturday morning, reports NBC Washington.

The participants in the robbery were brazen. Despite the fact that surveillance tapes were rolling, many were smiling and laughing while grabbing store merchandise, according to NBC Washington.